{"id":281917,"date":"2026-02-13T08:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/281917\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T08:46:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T08:46:09","slug":"biggest-bank-makes-low-deposit-property-investment-easier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/281917\/","title":{"rendered":"Biggest bank makes low-deposit property investment easier"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Generic<\/p>\n

\nANZ says it has been able to lend more to low-deposit investors thanks to the Reserve Bank easing lending restrictions.
\nPhoto: RNZ \/ Nate McKinnon\n<\/p>\n

New Zealand’s biggest bank is opening the doors to low-deposit lending for property investors.<\/p>\n

Lending to investors has been heavily restricted by loan-to-value restrictions recent years.<\/p>\n

But from 1 December, the Reserve Bank eased the rules<\/a>, allowing banks to lend up to 10 percent of their new lending to investors with a deposit or equity of less than 30 percent.<\/p>\n

Previously it had only allowed 5 percent to be at this level. This was effectively zero in practice because banks did not want to risk exceeding the limit.<\/p>\n

Restrictions on owner-occupiers also eased in December, allowing more lending to borrowers with a deposit of less than 20 percent.<\/p>\n

Reserve Bank data shows the amount of low-deposit lending increased in December, after the change took effect.<\/p>\n

In November, there was $1.178 billion of lending to borrowers with less than a 20 percent deposit, which lifted to $1.295b in December.<\/p>\n

Lending to those with a deposit of less than 30 percent increased month-on-month from $4.346b to $6.765b.<\/p>\n

ANZ said it had been able to lend more to low-deposit investors thanks to the changes.<\/p>\n

“A limited amount of residential property lending is currently available with a minimum deposit of 15 percent.<\/p>\n

“Because the Reserve Bank loan-to-value settings still only permit a relatively low level of these loans, we do regularly change our settings to manage demand and ensure we comply with Reserve Bank rules.”<\/p>\n

Kelvin Davidson, chief property economist at Cotality, said it was unlikely to transform the housing market.<\/p>\n

Lower mortgage rates helped investors, he said, and the return of interest deductibility was also in their favour.<\/p>\n

“But I just think there’s also a degree of caution out there because even though top-ups might be smaller than they would have been a year or two ago, they’re still chunky enough for people to have to put in [money] every week.<\/p>\n

“There are concerns about higher council rates, higher building insurance. flat rents, debt-to-income ratio restrictions kind of lurking in the background.”<\/p>\n

He said there was also likely to be caution about the election and the possibility of a capital gains tax in future.<\/p>\n

“I detect a sense among investors, maybe an older generation, that they’re not necessarily banking on such strong capital gains in future as they’ve had in the past.<\/p>\n

“That might be causing a bit of a mindset change and people being a bit more cautious about investing in property.”<\/p>\n

Sign up for Money with Susan Edmunds<\/a>, a weekly newsletter covering all the things that affect how we make, spend and invest money.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ANZ says it has been able to lend more to low-deposit investors thanks to the Reserve Bank easing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":281918,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[48,138,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-281917","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-current-affairs","11":"tag-new-zealand","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-newzealand","14":"tag-nz","15":"tag-podcasts","16":"tag-public-radio","17":"tag-radio-new-zealand","18":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281917","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/281917\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/281918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=281917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=281917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}